suicide bombing – News Agency nabakhabar

Dozens killed in terrorist attack at political rally in Pakistan

News Agency nabakhabar — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 09:25:45 +0000

At least 44 people were killed and more than 100 others wounded by a suicide bombing at a political gathering of a leading party in northwest Pakistan, officials said.

The blast targeted on Sunday the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-F (JUI-F) party — a government coalition partner led by an influential firebrand cleric — as hundreds of supporters congregated under a canopy in the town of Khar, near the Afghan border.

“The tent had collapsed on one side, trapping people who were desperately attempting to escape,” said Abdullah Khan, who tried to help the victims.

“There was utter confusion, with human flesh, limbs, and body parts scattered throughout the area, alongside lifeless bodies.”

Sabeeh Ullah, a 24-year-old party supporter who had his arm fractured by the blast, said the scale of injuries was horrifying.

“I found myself lying next to someone who had lost their limbs. The air was filled with the smell of human flesh,” he told AFP by phone.

As the toll kept rising, Riaz Anwar — the health minister for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province — told AFP late Sunday 44 people had been confirmed killed and over 100 wounded.

“It was a suicide attack, with the bomber detonating himself in close proximity to the stage,” he told AFP.

Pakistani media said there were some 400 people in the tent at the time of the explosion, and that multiple emergency crews were working the scene.

Images from the blast site circulating on social media showed bodies strewn around, and volunteers helping blood-soaked victims to ambulances.

Pakistan’s national assembly is due to dissolve in the next few weeks ahead of elections expected in October or November, and political parties are already preparing to campaign.

The blast coincides with a visit to the country by a senior delegation of Chinese officials, including Vice Premier He Lifeng, who arrived in the capital Sunday evening.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the blast Sunday on social media, offering condolences to the victims and vowing to punish those responsible.

Attacks against religious scholars

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but the local chapter of the Daesh terror group has recently carried out attacks against JUI-F.

Last year, Daesh said it was behind violent attacks against religious scholars affiliated with the party, which has a huge network of mosques and madrassas in the north and west of the country.

The terror group accuses JUI-F of hypocrisy for being an Islamic group while supporting hostile governments and the military.

The party’s leader, cleric Fazlur Rehman, started political life as a firebrand extremist hardliner but has softened his public image over the years in a bid to forge alliances with secular parties on the left and right.

With the ability to mobilize tens of thousands of madrassa students, his party never musters enough support for power on its own but is usually a key player in any coalition.

Pakistan has seen a sharp rise in militant attacks since the Afghan Taliban surged back to power in neighboring Afghanistan in 2021.

Pakistan’s home-grown Taliban group, Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), has largely directed its terror campaign against security officials, including police officers.

The post Dozens killed in terrorist attack at political rally in Pakistan appeared first on News Agency nabakhabar.

1 police killed, 5 wounded in suicide bombing in Pakistan

News Agency nabakhabar — Sun, 25 Jun 2023 09:50:53 +0000

A suicide bomber struck in southwestern Pakistan on Saturday, killing at least one police and wounding five others in an attempt to target a paramilitary convoy, an official said.

Authorities recovered the remains of a female bomber following the explosion in the southwestern city of Turbat, said Bashir Ahmed, a top administrative officer.

Jeeyand Baloch, the spokesman for the separatist Baluch Liberation Army, later claimed responsibility for the attack, CT News reported.

Ahmed said the bomber had targeted a convoy of the paramilitary Frontier Corps but the main thrust of the blast hit a police vehicle. He said a Frontier Corps vehicle was slightly damaged and a female police officer was among the wounded.

The post 1 police killed, 5 wounded in suicide bombing in Pakistan appeared first on News Agency nabakhabar.

Death toll from Pakistan mosque bombing rises to 100

News Agency nabakhabar — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 18:06:23 +0000

The death toll from a suicide bombing at a mosque in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar has risen to 100, a medical official says, as the South Asian country faces a mounting security challenge from armed groups.

“So far, 100 bodies have been brought to Lady Reading Hospital,” the spokesman for the largest medical facility in the city, Mohammad Asim, said in a statement on Tuesday.

The vast majority of those killed in Monday’s bombing were police officers, he said.

Kashif Aftab Abbasi, senior superintendent of police operations in Peshawar, told Al Jazeera that more than 225 people were injured in the blast.

The roof of the mosque, which was located inside a government security compound, collapsed in the bombing, and rescuers had to remove mounds of debris to recover many of the bodies, authorities said.

Reporting from Peshawar, Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder said the rescue operation had largely shifted to recovery.

“There has been a ceremonial send-off to those policemen who lost their lives, also funerals taking place across the province, because these policemen came from several districts, so there is mourning across the province,” he said.

KP Inspector General Mauzzam Jah Ansari during a media briefing that the caretaker chief minister of the province Azam Khan had ordered a joint investigation team (JIT) to immediately investigate the deadly attack, local media Dawn reported.

The attack is the deadliest in Peshawar in a decade and was carried out during a surge in violence against the police.

(Al Jazeera)

Questions are being asked over how an attacker wearing a suicide vest was able to access the heavily fortified area, which includes the headquarters of the provincial police force and a counterterrorism department.

The bombing followed “credible intelligence reports” on January 21 that Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) planned a wave of attacks in Peshawar and the wider Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Hyder reported.

Shortly after the explosion, Omar Mukaram Khorasani – head of the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a TTP splinter group and a member of the TTP’s leadership council – said his group committed the attack in retaliation for the killing last year of the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar’s former leader Omar Khalid Khorasani in Afghanistan, according to the Long War Journal and the South Asia Media Research Institute.

Khorasani “took responsibility, saying this was a revenge attack for the killing of his brother in Afghanistan, which he blamed on the Pakistani security forces”, Hyder said. “This is a splinter group, and they joined the mainstream TTP back in 2020, so definitely a group within the TTP.”

Nevertheless, TTP spokesman Mohammad Khorasani distanced the group from the bombing, saying it was not its policy to target mosques, seminaries and other religious sites. He added that those taking part in such acts could face punitive action by the TTP, but he did not address Khorasan i’s claims.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Ghulam Ali said an investigation was underway to determine “how the terrorist entered the mosque” in the provincial capital.

“Yes, it was a security lapse,” he said.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif promised to take “stern action” against those behind the attack as he visited a hospital in Peshawar on Monday.

“The sheer scale of the human tragedy is unimaginable. This is no less than an attack on Pakistan,” he tweeted. He expressed his condolences to the families of the victims, saying their pain “cannot be described in words”.

Pakistan has seen a surge in attacks since November when the TTP ended a ceasefire with the government.

Rescuers search through the rubble of the mosque in Peshawar, Pakistan [Abid Hussain/Al Jazeera]

In early January, the TTP said one of its members shot and killed two intelligence officers, including the director of the counterterrorism wing of the military’s spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence. Security officials said on Monday that the gunman in that attack was traced and killed in a shootout in northwestern Pakistan near the Afghan border.

The TTP is a separate group from the Afghan Taliban, but they are close allies.

The TTP has waged a 15-year uprising against the Pakistani government, which included a 2014 attack by a faction of the group on an army-run school in Peshawar, which killed 154 people, mostly children.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the latest bombing “particularly abhorrent” for targeting a place of worship, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

The attack occurred as cash-strapped Pakistan continues to face a severe economic crisis. It has sought an installment of $1.1bn from the International Monetary Fund – part of its $6bn bailout package – to avoid default. However, talks with the IMF have stalled in recent months.

The post Death toll from Pakistan mosque bombing rises to 100 appeared first on News Agency nabakhabar.